Pot initiative will go before Encinitas voters in 2014

ENCINITAS  Encinitas voters will get to weigh in on a medical marijuana initiative in November 2014, two years after neighboring North County cities get to cast their vote.

After reviewing a report analyzing the effects of the initiative, the Encinitas City Council voted 4-0 Wednesday to place the initiative on the city’s 2014 general election ballot. Mayor Jerome Stocks was absent from the meeting.

“The voters need to make their case,” Councilman James Bond said right before the vote.

Backers of the initiative, sponsored by Patient Care Association, turned in signatures in late July in an attempt to get the initiative on the November 2012 ballot. The County Registrar of Voters certified them Aug. 8., two days before the state imposed deadline for putting it on this year’s ballot. To qualify, the council would have had to call a special meeting to vote to place it on the ballot, then file the paperwork with the registrar by the Aug. 10 deadline. The council was on summer recess and no member called for such a meeting.

In July the Del Mar and Solana Beach city councils voted to place similar initiatives on the November 2012 ballot. The Lemon Grove City Council voted in August to also place the citizen’s initiative, as well as its own competing measure, on the ballot.

City Attorney Glenn Sabine told council members that voting to put the measure on the 2014 ballot would serve as a “wait-and-see approach” as Encinitas can see what happens with the neighboring cities initiatives. After the initiative is placed on the ballot, the council has the option to file an action to remove it from the ballot or file a post-election challenge seeking a judicial determination of validity of the initiative, he said.

More than a dozen speakers addressed the council Wednesday night. The majority were opposed to the initiative.

“I believe when we wait and see what we will see is that dispensaries will not be allowed,” said Evelyn Hogan.

Kathleen Mackay said, “I don’t want it in my city and I don’t want it in my sister cities.”

Physician Bob Blake was one of five people who spoke in favor of the initiative. He said medical marijuana patients needed a convenient and safe place to obtain their medicine, rather than driving 30 minutes to an hour to another dispensary or “wait for their connection to show up in some dark alley.”

The initiative would limit storefront dispensaries to commercial and industrial areas and levy a 2.5 percent tax on retail transactions. It also would establish security measures and hours of operation and require licensing by existing city departments.